{
  "meta": {
    "schema": "statbook-api/1",
    "release_version": "3.0.0",
    "compiled_at": "2026-09-21T00:00:00Z",
    "generated_at": "2026-09-28T09:07:46Z",
    "attribution": [
      "© Crown and database right. Derived from content available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 from legislation.gov.uk.",
      "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0."
    ],
    "docs": "https://statbook.co.uk/docs/",
    "signing": {
      "scheme": "minisign",
      "public_key": "RWSPzbJEmAXVEvTqYZ8O9iHuOcOUii5lCNZM5t9bdoQh4ZnwKsxk/+bd",
      "key_id": "12D5059844B2CD8F",
      "verify": "https://statbook.co.uk/assurance/#verify"
    }
  },
  "figure": {
    "id": "employment.ssp.piw_linking_weeks",
    "name": "Statutory Sick Pay: linking period",
    "category": "employment",
    "jurisdiction": "GB",
    "unit": "weeks",
    "value_type": "count",
    "currency": null,
    "cadence": null,
    "source_type": "act",
    "act_probe": {
      "verdict": "ACT-HOLDS",
      "provision": "section-152-3",
      "probed": "2026-09-08",
      "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/4/section/152/data.xml",
      "content_hash": "sha256:7eaa277b73a1d3c5e2b008eeb6ac619fb5614c37e09b0f8ca6c2ce1586d01a0d",
      "tokens": [
        "separated by a period of not more than 8 weeks"
      ],
      "commentaries_c": [
        "M_C_57febaab-22a9-41c2-a845-d3c4a418c329"
      ],
      "expires": null
    },
    "values": [
      {
        "value": 8,
        "value_minor": null,
        "effective_from": "1992-07-01",
        "effective_to": null,
        "announcement_date": null,
        "enacted_date": null,
        "instrument_made": true,
        "terminal_kind": null,
        "status": "corroborated",
        "sources": [
          {
            "role": "legislation",
            "citation": "Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, c. 4 s. 152(3) (\"Any two periods of incapacity for work which are separated by a period of not more than 8 weeks shall be treated as a single period of incapacity for work\")",
            "uri": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/4/section/152",
            "retrieved": "2026-09-08T16:05:25Z",
            "content_hash": "sha256:0f940597610b91f915d7c5048098e55565a296099cde77a7507d89aed476a43a"
          },
          {
            "role": "guidance",
            "citation": "https://www.gov.uk/statutory-sick-pay (\"Linked periods of sickness … To be linked, the periods must: last more than one full working day; be 8 weeks or less apart\")",
            "uri": "https://www.gov.uk/statutory-sick-pay",
            "retrieved": "2026-07-29T14:08:25Z",
            "content_hash": "sha256:17da7584134786c6b306464e8c4570d36347abaf2f72a1aca3afb4e444568f64"
          }
        ],
        "verified": {
          "guidance": "2026-09-21T10:07:35Z",
          "legislation": "2026-09-21T10:07:35Z"
        },
        "last_verified": "2026-09-21T10:07:35Z"
      }
    ],
    "derivation": null,
    "invariants": [],
    "lineage": [],
    "definitions": [
      {
        "from": null,
        "to": null,
        "text": "The linking rule for Statutory Sick Pay: two periods of incapacity for work separated by no more than this many weeks are treated as ONE period, so waiting days are not served again and the 28-week entitlement limit runs across both.",
        "instrument": "Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 s.152(3)"
      }
    ],
    "applicability": {
      "basis": "pay_period_start",
      "note": "Measured between the end of one period of incapacity and the start of the next; the gap is counted in weeks, not working days.",
      "article": "Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 s.152(2)-(3)"
    },
    "scope_note": "s.152(4) lets regulations substitute a LARGER number of weeks; none has. From 6 April 2026 s.152(1) (the three-day minimum period) is omitted and s.152(2) is reworded by the Employment Rights Act 2025, but subsection (3) is untouched — the probe judges the subsection, not the section. The value has stood since the Act's consolidation of the 1982 SSP scheme.",
    "notes": "A count, located by an authored LOCATORS phrase read from s.152(3); the GOV.UK list item is registered in B_EVIDENCE for the nightly. effective_from is the Act's own commencement, read from s.177(4) in the archived whole-Act current view: \"Except as provided in Schedule 4 to the Consequential Provisions Act, this Act shall come into force on 1st July 1992\": the rule is the consolidated text, not a later amendment. (The subsection was cited as s.177(2) when this row was authored on 2026-09-08; the commencement is s.177(4), corrected here against the archived whole-Act view.)",
    "record_version": 3
  },
  "receipt": {
    "record_hash": "sha256:d1c82b222ac88564ed6767c26c0fb7bb597064e98af23d308064c7293d27c18f",
    "record_hash_of": "the `figure` object, serialized as UTF-8 JSON with 2-space indent, ensure_ascii=false and a trailing newline",
    "release_version": "3.0.0",
    "manifest": "https://statbook.co.uk/v1/releases/3.0.0/manifest.json",
    "record_url": "https://statbook.co.uk/v1/figures/employment.ssp.piw_linking_weeks.json",
    "sources": [
      {
        "role": "legislation",
        "citation": "Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, c. 4 s. 152(3) (\"Any two periods of incapacity for work which are separated by a period of not more than 8 weeks shall be treated as a single period of incapacity for work\")",
        "uri": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/4/section/152",
        "retrieved": "2026-09-08T16:05:25Z",
        "content_hash": "sha256:0f940597610b91f915d7c5048098e55565a296099cde77a7507d89aed476a43a"
      },
      {
        "role": "guidance",
        "citation": "https://www.gov.uk/statutory-sick-pay (\"Linked periods of sickness … To be linked, the periods must: last more than one full working day; be 8 weeks or less apart\")",
        "uri": "https://www.gov.uk/statutory-sick-pay",
        "retrieved": "2026-07-29T14:08:25Z",
        "content_hash": "sha256:17da7584134786c6b306464e8c4570d36347abaf2f72a1aca3afb4e444568f64"
      }
    ],
    "verified": {
      "guidance": "2026-09-21T10:07:35Z",
      "legislation": "2026-09-21T10:07:35Z"
    },
    "last_verified": "2026-09-21T10:07:35Z"
  }
}